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mastershakeman posted:the problem with 4, as well as 3 and 5 is that it's easy to tune out during combat since movement isn't fluid like it was in 2 and prior. in those versions you can move your guy any time you want which means you pay way more attention It's almost as if giving people more off-turn Oh wait, 4e did that so let's cut it down to 1 Reaction per round. Thanks, Mearls!
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Feb 18, 2017 14:27
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I think a big part of getting people engaged with the game enough to prevent them from mentally checking-out when it's not their turn is to get them to anticipate their turn. "Popcorn initiative" tries to do this by making initiative flexible enough that people can "combo" easily, since you just take whatever turn order you need to pull it off. Another aspect that I'd like to bring up is giving people something to react to. I've written about deliberately and actively telling people what the NPCs are about to do so that there is a sense of danger and so that people can form tactics in response to these incoming moves. It's in keeping with more modern RPG design wherein you have games like Blades in the Dark and Dungeon World telling you to "show them a threat that's about to hit, then ask them what they do" If the Wizard is wide-open, and you tell the players that the big enemy brute is going to go for it, then the Fighter is going to want to body-block the brute. The Ranger might want to shoot the enemy firedancer since they're a softer target, but if the Fighter fails to stop the brute, then the Ranger might have to redirect to ensnare the brute instead as a second attempt. Ideally, this means that the Ranger is paying attention throughout the Fighter's turn because they need to know how the Fighter's turn ended up in order to plan for their own turn. Otherwise, if the NPCs are always completely opaque in their thoughts and intent, then perhaps the Fighter charges the firedancer because it's an easy target, and the Ranger shoots the firedancer because it's an easy target, and then the brute heads for the Wizard, because the players simply didn't have anything better to plan with or about. [of course, all of that demands a lot of the game's design: that the Wizard is vulnerable enough to the brute that the brute poses a clear and present danger, that both the Fighter and the Ranger have tools by which to attempt to stop the brute, and that those tools work]
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Feb 18, 2017 16:30
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mastershakeman posted:that's what I keep saying, if they're so flat and boring why have them in the first place. making a race for a wizard specialty is crazy That's all gone now of course.
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Feb 18, 2017 18:02
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gradenko_2000 posted:Another aspect that I'd like to bring up is giving people something to react to. I've written about deliberately and actively telling people what the NPCs are about to do so that there is a sense of danger and so that people can form tactics in response to these incoming moves. This works really well if you rewind to the old team-initiative system, where you have discrete rounds with a huddle for planning at the beginning instead of modern cyclic initiative.
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Feb 18, 2017 18:38
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People are going to check out when it isn't their turn. There's no way to entirely prevent it. Like, even if you gave people stuff to do on their off-turn, not everybody would use or even want to use that resource. The only thing that will engage players - and even then, never all of the players, all of the time - is if the narrative of the combat shifts from moment to moment such so that you have to pay attention if you want to be able to reasonably respond to it. If you have a bandit lord who just exchanges blows with the players then, yeah, they're going to check out. If the other characters are pushing him around and setting up dunks than they're way more likely to care when it comes back to their turn. FFG Star Wars is pretty good at this because even if somebody misses, they're adjusting the narrative and handing out bonuses to other players. Sadly 5e doesn't do this particularly well but usually if people engage with the narrative I'll try to find a way to give them advantage.
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Feb 18, 2017 21:09
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Having combat that just moves fast will keep people plenty engaged. With a party of 5, I estimate it at < 90 seconds per player turn. I've found what slows people down the most in 5e is: - having to many flowcharty options - not rolling all their attacks at once - not having a useful thing to do (which is bit alleviated if you remind them of the help action, if they're that type of player.)
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Feb 18, 2017 21:41
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lifg posted:- not rolling all their attacks at once Since you can move before/after an attack, don't you want to roll 1 attack at a time in case your target dies and you want to attack another one?
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Feb 18, 2017 22:02
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empathe posted:Since you can move before/after an attack, don't you want to roll 1 attack at a time in case your target dies and you want to attack another one? Good point. You can still roll everything at once against big monsters. But otherwise I guess I don't have a good aolution.
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Feb 18, 2017 22:16
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lifg posted:Good point. You can still roll everything at once against big monsters. But otherwise I guess I don't have a good aolution. Roll your attack and damage at the same time, at the very least. You could also do different colors of dice and always read the colours in the same order for attacks 1/2/3/etc. Since the problem only happens when you kill an opponent and you still have no way of knowing when that will happen, I'm not seeing any functional difference between "I'll attack orc 1 and if they die I'll move and attack orc 2 and if they die I'll move and attack orc 3". (Moves to orc 1, rolls to attack, rolls damage, gets the kill, moves to orc 2, rolls to attack, miss, rolls to attack, rolls damage) and "I got a hit/miss/hit, I'll attack orc 1, and if the hit kills them I'll move and attack orc 2 and miss then hit". (Rolls dice, moves to orc 1, applies damage from attack 1, gets the kill, moves to orc 2, applies damage from attack 3). In both versions the same exact thing has happened in the fiction, and it's not like the second version gives an advantage to the player just by knowing that they'll miss their second attack, because it's not like they were gonna move to orc 2, miss, then move on to orc 3 in the first version either.
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Feb 18, 2017 22:41
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gradenko_2000 posted:... BECMI has a skill system? Gonna need a page and book reference.
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Feb 18, 2017 22:46
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AlphaDog posted:You could also do different colors of dice and always read the colours in the same order for attacks 1/2/3/etc. Since the problem only happens when you kill an opponent and you still have no way of knowing when that will happen, I'm not seeing any functional difference between This is what my group does, not with colors specifically but the idea of rollign all the dice at once and using a repeatable very defined set of rules for which dice do what and to who so that there's no arguing and you don't have to roll everythign individually. of course this is online so the rules wouldn't work for actual table top but the same theory applies.
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Feb 18, 2017 22:48
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Babylon Astronaut posted:I really like the skill system from the Red box, DM's booklet, page 20. Also, the various skatterbrained resolution mechanics probably count eg bend bars, thief skills, ect. The RC has a skill system. I thought it was somewhere in the BECMI books too but I guess my memory's playing tricks on me. Or else I just can't spot it this morning.
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Feb 18, 2017 23:04
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Mendrian posted:People are going to check out when it isn't their turn. There's no way to entirely prevent it. If youre playing a wargame that moves at dnd speed then yeah its a lost cause. If there are players that are just there to pretty much just hang out, then thats a separate thing and can be worked around by making sure their characters have some class-appropriate way to "I attack" and everything moves along around them.
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Feb 18, 2017 23:19
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It requires a more liberal definition of skill system because it is not a unified mechanic. There's d100 thief skills and d6 bend bars, break doors. Then, for anything else not covered, there's the roll under ability score system. I just take all the crap out and use the roll under system for everything. It's under the heading "new rules." I especially like using multiple d6's instead of d20 because it makes a curve, and there are more auto successes. Maybe I'm reading a different edition of the red box? Mine is the 1983 version of the Basic Set with the Elmore art, not the Erol Otus one.
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Feb 18, 2017 23:20
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I tend not to care about nature hippie stuff in RPGs. Is there any interesting druid specialization that lets you do fun poo poo other than just "I like animals and heal spells?" Maybe some subtly malevolent "you're in the wrong fuckin neighborhood, city boy" type Fey guardian? I mean obviously you can flavor that with whatever, but all the mechanical directions I've seen for them look really samey. edit: Also, Circle of the Shepherd is literally the cartoon Brave Starr, minus Speed of the Puma. Nehru the Damaja fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Feb 18, 2017 |
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Feb 18, 2017 23:38
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So I have a boss I wanted to get a critique on. It's kind of MMO-ish which I think will make my player happy. I would ask any of my players who might be reading this thread to not read for my own sanity if they could. Players not reading, right? Okay. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XJNhjXPseZnRi-T8x4ySGirwJiwYF5v8JsafeidJNAw/edit?usp=sharing A few things about the concept: So this guy is in the middle ( I don't like to put bosses at the end of dungeons, I think it's lovely design) of a time-based dungeon. One of the puzzle elements the players discover are crystals that let them replay their actions or store good rolls for reuse, so that's going to be part of the room design. He's got high HP for his CR because he has some obvious vulnerabilities. He's basically a clock. If the players let the combat drone on for 11 rounds, he'll probably kill them, but they can delay the inevitable by killing the minions that circle around him before he has a chance to get any of his really nasty powers off. Let me know what you think! EDIT: Rereading him I guess he's vulnerable to mind-affected spells like Tasha's Hideous Laughter and the like, since I don't have any kind of Legendary Resistance on him. Part of that is that none of my players have those kinds of spells, so I guess I'm teaching to the test here. I'm reluctant to give him the ability to just shrug off whatever because he already has so many specific immunities. Mendrian fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Feb 18, 2017 |
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Feb 18, 2017 23:38
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I tend not to care about nature hippie stuff in RPGs. Is there any interesting druid specialization that lets you do fun poo poo other than just "I like animals and heal spells?" Maybe some subtly malevolent "you're in the wrong fuckin neighborhood, city boy" type Fey guardian? I mean obviously you can flavor that with whatever, but all the mechanical directions I've seen for them look really samey. Pick Moon. Turn into a nigh-unkillable bear who's probably the best melee brawler in the game. Don't ever cast a healing spell. Act as subtly or unsubtly malevolent as you want. Maybe your fey-blooded order of druids doesn't give a gently caress about people hunting wolves or whatever and are just there to make sure that whoever wanders into the deep woods doesn't wander back out again. Like, you might not kill them or imprison them but they're not gonna wander out, they're gonna run out screaming and making GBS threads their pants at the primal terrors that lurk within. The forest you guard doesn't consist of flowers and squirrels and bluebirds. I mean, physically it might contain those, but that's not what you guys guard, you guard the concept of the forest as a fey portal. You don't like animals. You use animals. Nobody who doesn't live at the edges of the deep forest would understand any of this. They're thinking of a forest as a little patch of trees with nice paths leading through it. They want to turn the forest into resources. They're thinking of you as the guy in the foreground. They're not going to be happy with what they discover. 
Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 18, 2017 23:59
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Reverse Totem Warrior. You're not an elf that turns into a bear through Nature's blessing. You're a bear that insulted a fey creature and was cursed to walk around as a smooth skinned disgusting elf. Eat literally everything in a tavern storeroom, if a Halfling sasses you pick him up by his scruff and give him a good shake, break poo poo instead of opening it properly. As time progresses spend more and more time wild shaped.
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Feb 19, 2017 00:21
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Razorwired posted:Reverse Totem Warrior. You're not an elf that turns into a bear through Nature's blessing. You're a bear that insulted a fey creature and was cursed to walk around as a smooth skinned disgusting elf. Eat literally everything in a tavern storeroom, if a Halfling sasses you pick him up by his scruff and give him a good shake, break poo poo instead of opening it properly. As time progresses spend more and more time wild shaped. Tie that into what I said, and you're a bear that the fair folk are using to protect their groves/portals/wellsprings/whatever and have "gifted" humanoid form and various magic powers. You've broken free of their control a little bit, possibly by wandering out of the forest or chasing someone too far from the portal or something. Your goals: Eat berries, sleep all winter, make more bears, maul assholes who stop you trying to do the first three things, find out how to forget any of this poo poo ever happened so you can go back to only caring about the first four things.
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Feb 19, 2017 00:34
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Mendrian posted:So I have a boss I wanted to get a critique on. It's kind of MMO-ish which I think will make my player happy. I would ask any of my players who might be reading this thread to not read for my own sanity if they could. I think he is pretty cool. I don't have a ton of input on him. A little later when I am less busy I may have more to add. Curious about the putting bosses at the end of dungeons is bad thing however.
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Feb 19, 2017 00:50
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MonsterEnvy posted:I think he is pretty cool. I don't have a ton of input on him. A little later when I am less busy I may have more to add. This is a 'my opinion' thing, so I hope nobody takes it as some kind of moral absolute. Bosses at the end of dungeons tends to reward players for hoarding their best abilities and that makes attrition encounters boring as everybody relies on basic melee attacks or at-will spells. By having a tougher encounter in the center or even beginning of a dungeon, you can encourage players to engage with the tactical space while their energy is high and everybody is fresh. In the mechanical space, casters still have lots of spells and anybody with limited use magic items probably still has some charges left, so people can use their fun toys and I can design encounters around people actually having the poo poo I see on their character sheets. On an OOC level, people are usually tired and thinking about going home by the end of the game, so I usually focus on a couple of smaller encounters, puzzles, or story elements in the last third of the gaming session. So I'm also doing them a psychological favor by not asking them to make their most difficult tactical choices while OOC exhausted. It's okay to have a boss at the end of the dungeon but doing it every single time is a great way to train your players to never use anything of value.
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Feb 19, 2017 01:05
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What are good monsters thematically to pair with a green hag?
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Feb 19, 2017 01:17
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Tir McDohl posted:What are good monsters thematically to pair with a green hag? Two more hags 
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Feb 19, 2017 01:19
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Tir McDohl posted:What are good monsters thematically to pair with a green hag? I've been researching monsters to populate a dungeon deep in the forest I'm working on, and nearly considered throwing in a green hag (though I decided against it); hence, having this list on hand. Also, yeah, I imagine hags might hang together.
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Feb 19, 2017 01:27
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Mendrian posted:It's okay to have a boss at the end of the dungeon but doing it every single time is a great way to train your players to never use anything of value. This, and also "You beat the boss and now xyz is happening and you're low on resources and ESCAPE SCENE / PLOT TWIST" is cool too. Like, the boss fight is the "end" of the dungeon, sure, but you still have to get out which you thought would be a stroll back the way you came but now what with the eldritch macguffin not powering the apocalypse engine (and the whole lair, because it's in your backpack) the place is literally falling apart and the spawning tanks have ruptured and half-formed horrors are stumbling around blindly lashing out and... Or what you thought was the biggest baddest evilest guy is actually not, and his boss shows up with 3 other guys like the one you just fought, and their bodyguards, and their war-band. Or it turns out that you weren't the only ones trying to recover the artifact. Or for whatever reason you simply can't go back the way you came and have to go out a different, equally dangerous way. Like, there doesn't need to be a big twist for this, maybe the main entrance caves in during the fight or something. Or you snuck in but the fighting has alerted all 10,000 enemy troops camped out the front. The NPC you rescued heard that there's a secret passage out through the coastal caves but they don't know where it is or where it leads. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 01:28
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Agent355 posted:Two more hags Hag covens are awesome but a little tougher than I'm going for. A hag coven is coming in this story eventually though! Bad Seafood posted:Bullywugs, grungs, myconids, shriekers, will-o-whisps, maybe a living tree of some sort she fights you alongside. Anything that lives in swamps or primeval forests, basically. You could probably justify other creatures like gnolls as well. Awesome, bullywugs provide a connection to the previous adventure and the others seem fun, too.
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Feb 19, 2017 01:34
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Catoblepas are stated to be kept by Hags as well. Volo's Guide has a hag minions table along with stuff like Regional effects and Lair actions for them. And stuff like weird magic and Vehicles they can employ. Edit. Here are the servents and brute tables. SERVANTS d8 Servant(s) 1 1d4 flameskulls 2 1d2 flesh golems 3 1d2 helmed horrors 4 1 rug of smothering 5 1d6 scarecrows 6 2d4 shadow mastiffs* 7 2d4 swarms of insects or swarms of rats 8 1d6 yeth hounds* BRUTES d12 Brute(s) 1 2d6+2 bugbears 2 1d6+2 doppelgangers 3 ld6+2 ettercaps 4 2d6+2 gargoyles 5 2d4+2 jackalweres 6 2d6+4 kenku 7 2d6+2 meenlocks* 8 1d4 oni 9 2d6+2 quicklings* 10 2d4+2 redcaps* 11 1d6+4 wererats 12 ld4+2 werewolves MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 02:16
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AlphaDog posted:Tie that into what I said, and you're a bear that the fair folk are using to protect their groves/portals/wellsprings/whatever and have "gifted" humanoid form and various magic powers. You've broken free of their control a little bit, possibly by wandering out of the forest or chasing someone too far from the portal or something. Your goals: Eat berries, sleep all winter, make more bears, maul assholes who stop you trying to do the first three things, find out how to forget any of this poo poo ever happened so you can go back to only caring about the first four things. heck, that's not far off from the weremonster from the recent x-files season And re: gnomes, the 4e concept of them sounds great. I just can't get past how they even came to exist in the first place in d&d
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Feb 19, 2017 02:19
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MonsterEnvy posted:Volo's Guide has a hag minions table along with stuff like Regional effects and Lair actions for them. And stuff like weird magic and Vehicles they can employ. The price as printed's too rich for my blood but Amazon'll ship you a copy for cheaper, which is why I'm considering it.
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Feb 19, 2017 02:36
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I actually realized a Circle of Land/Swamp Druid seems really fun for the story I'm going into. They're not particularly dreck or anything, are they? I was gonna pitch one as a fir bolg. edit: Man the concept is great but jesus Grass just dunks on everything with its spell list edit 2: Oh hey Circle of Twilight from UA does what I'm trying to do with less ambiguity. Nehru the Damaja fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 02:41
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It's interesting to note that in Navajo spirituality, there are animal spirits, human spirits, and the spirits of inanimate objects. The bear is the only animal who has a human spirit and is called the man of the mountain. A bear turning into a human then makes sense as their spirit remains the same.
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Feb 19, 2017 02:43
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Bad Seafood posted:Is Volo's Guide to Monsters worth picking up? The prospect of some more monsters to play around with plus some additional PC races seems like a nice thing to net. Very worth it in my opinion. The new monsters are all pretty cool. Plus it expands quite a bit on Beholders, Giants, Mind Flayers, Goblinoids, Orcs, Kobolds, Hags, gnolls and Yuan Ti. I also got for cheaper. Which is nice. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 03:44
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MonsterEnvy, is there a 5e book that you don't like? Or which 5e book would you least recommend, and why? This isn't a trick question or anything, I'm trying to gauge your standards.
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Feb 19, 2017 03:59
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gradenko_2000 posted:MonsterEnvy, is there a 5e book that you don't like? There are so few books to even gauge this question. I bet if any, it's SCAG. I've got all the books, and that's given me the least use, and the worst mileage.
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Feb 19, 2017 04:23
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gradenko_2000 posted:MonsterEnvy, is there a 5e book that you don't like? Horde of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat are pretty rough and require cleanup. Plus some notable parts were cut from the adventures overall weaken it. As a result I can't really recommend it. The other 5e adventures are much more solid anyway. I still plan on running them as there are some cool parts, but I will probably change a fair number of things. On a non adventure. Sword Coast Adventure Guide while it does have some new sub classes and races among other things, if you are not a fan of the realms and or are not interested in learning about it, the book is largely wasted on you as it is mostly a fluff book for learning about the Realms (Luckily I am a fan of the realms and do enjoy learning stuff about it.) MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 04:25
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Spiteski posted:There are so few books to even gauge this question. Were there any worthwhile archetypes in there besides the Swashbuckler Rogue? Like, I'm looking forward to the revised Ranger becoming official published material, but it seems like 90% of what they put out is poo poo. I was pretty hyped when I saw they put out a UA with a Scout archetype for Rogue, but upon looking into it, it was pretty much just as meh as the previous round of Fighter UA archetypes (which coincidentally included a Scout as well.)
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Feb 19, 2017 04:45
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Yeah, I'm not interested in adventure modules or pure fluff books, but I like having supplements that give me more mechanical options. My current group has kinda sorta split the cost of things by having different people buy different books (or PDFs), but I'm one of newer members so I've yet to add my contribution to the pot; thought Volo might be a choice pick.
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Feb 19, 2017 04:47
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P.d0t posted:Were there any worthwhile archetypes in there besides the Swashbuckler Rogue? The Storm Sorcerer (Another UA Sub Class), The two Monks and the Crown Paladin were also pretty cool as was the Bladesinger. The new Cantrips were also nice. Though I don't think they justify the purchase of the book if you are not interested in the fluff side of the book.
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Feb 19, 2017 04:49
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gradenko_2000 posted:MonsterEnvy, is there a 5e book that you don't like? In fairness to Monster Envy, Volo's Guide to Monsters is actually a good book.
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Feb 19, 2017 04:59
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Bad Seafood posted:Yeah, I'm not interested in adventure modules or pure fluff books, but I like having supplements that give me more mechanical options. Yeah Volo's is probably the book to get. Book breaks down into 3 chunks. Chapter 1. Which expands on Beholders, Giants, Gnolls, Goblins, Mind Flayers, Orcs, Kobolds, Hags and Yuan Ti. It's primarily fluff but most of the sections contain more options for those races. Like Lair Actions for all types of Hags, Variant Beholder Eye Rays, Mind Flayer Grafts and Yuan Ti traits. All of the Races but the Gnolls and Giants also get a cool map showing typical lairs they use. Chapter 2. New races. Several new playable races along with some of the monstrous races talked about in chapter 1. Chapter 3. New Monsters. A little over 100 new monsters. Most are pretty cool Edit: Here the Table of Contents so you can look a bit at whats in the book. EDIT AGAIN: uploaded the wrong image. 
MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 05:00
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